The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that last month, the S&P 500 rose to reclaim the high-water mark set in January, 2022. The Globe's Tim Shufelt writes that the Canadian market is not quite there yet, with another 6-per-cent gain needed to hit its 2022 peak, but history shows that the S&P/TSX Composite Index tends to follow the U.S. stock market into record territory within a few months. On a purely rational level, a stock index's previous peak should be a meaningless threshold, but the stock market is not an entirely rational beast. The last record high can act as a barrier at which buyers become reluctant. Breaking through that barrier, however, as the S&P 500 has just done, wipes the slate clean. The market tends to hold onto those gains, paving the way for further upside. This is one reason that record highs tend to arrive in clusters. In the heady days of 2021, for example, when markets were sizzling, the S&P 500 struck 70 new closing highs -- one every few trading days. In the opposite extreme, Japan's Nikkei 225 has not hit a record high since 1989. For 34 years, its stock market has been in negative territory as its economy has contended with deflation and aging demographics.